


Leaving Harvey

by Blue_Five



Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-14
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-03-12 07:08:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3348128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue_Five/pseuds/Blue_Five
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"People don't leave me," Harvey said once.  Mike believes him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leaving Harvey

Mike stares at the city skyline, his chin resting on Harvey’s shoulder.  The air up here is always in motion, there’s always sound from the streets below – Mike feels Harvey inhale deeply.

“Hear it, Mike?” he asks his lover.

Mike closes his eyes and smiles.  “All I can hear is Louis cursing you for taking every cherry account he drooled over from him.”

Harvey chuckles.  “If you can’t hold on to what you want, you don’t deserve it.”

“Another one of Harvey Specter’s Wise Sayings,” Mike says.

“I hope you’ve been writing them all down … the royalties from that book will be astounding,” Harvey replies.

“Every word,” Mike says, turning to kiss Harvey’s cheek.  “Mmm…you’re cold.  You should be inside.”

“Not yet, Mike … please?” Harvey asks softly.  “I just – she’s the only thing that got me through all those years until I met you.  She gave me life.”

Mike nods and settles himself more firmly behind Harvey.  No one watching would ever know it was only Mike’s body holding Harvey upright.  Mike wraps his arms around the too-thin frame and covers the cool hands with his own.  He rubs their left ring fingers together, Mike’s simple gunmetal ring slides over Harvey’s empty digit, his hand too slender now to keep his own ring in place.

“Come a long way, rookie,” Harvey says.

“You haven’t called me that in years,” Mike murmurs.

Harvey smiles and turns slowly in Mike’s arms to face his husband.  Seventeen years is nowhere near long enough to spend looking at the pale blue eyes filling with tears.  Harvey reaches up and gently wipes a drop away.

“None of that,” Harvey says tenderly.  “Not while I’m still around.”

“ _Harvey_ ,” Mike whispers.

It’s all he has to say for Harvey to hear the underlying _I love you_.  It’s all he needed to hear the first night they kissed and he made love to Mike.  It’s all he needed to hear the day he told Mike he was going to be a name partner.  It’s his name and the way Mike says it fills the simple moniker with whatever his enormous heart is feeling.  It tells Harvey his boy is hurting and the older man wishes he could ease that pain – he’d give anything to have longer with Mike.  All the cars, all the clothes and the fancy life – it’s nothing compared to what he shared with Mike over the past seventeen years. 

“I know,” Harvey replies.  “Babe, I know … you’ll be ok.  I know you will.”

Mike shakes his head, suddenly the young colt struggling to find his legs in the world of high-dollar law.  Only Mike knows that world now like Harvey did … he’s just rebelling against this new challenge.  Harvey smiles, recognizing the vein of stubbornness that he fell so hard for.

“I won’t.  Not this time … I need you, Harvey,” Mike says, pressing a soft kiss against Harvey’s lips.

Harvey snorts.  “Seriously, Mike?  You’ve lived this too many times in your life and I wish I wasn’t one of those chapters but you came back fighting from your folks, from your grandmother and you’ll definitely come back from me or I’ll kick your ass from the grave.”

Mike chuckles weakly.  He turns and helps Harvey into the hated wheelchair which goes with _nothing_ in Harvey’s opinion before wheeling his husband into the condo they’ve shared together for most of their marriage, the one Harvey owned when they met long since sold.

Mike moves Harvey through the motions of getting ready for bed.  Teeth brushed, pajamas put on, a warm cup of cocoa to assuage his husband’s persistent sweet tooth – never mind it undoes the tooth brushing, thank you very much – and then the gentle transition to bed.  Mike settles him with blankets and soft pillows before sliding the cannula into place and turning on Harvey’s oxygen.  He changes into his own pajamas and slides between the sheets and presses against Harvey.  They say little – when Harvey’s disease took its final course, they said everything then.  That Mike stays and takes care of Harvey himself instead of hiring help tells Harvey more than any mere words.  He knows his boy will sleep on beside him through the night and that makes it easier in the early hours of the morning to reach over and thread his fingers into the soft hair and murmur, _“Mike, I love you.”_

Harvey smiles when his husband replies like he always does – not even waking, just breaking away from whatever dreams he’s lost in to answer.  _“Love you too, Harvey.”_

Harvey is gone before the words finish leaving Mike’s sleeping lips.

* * *

Mike prepares his husband the next morning when he wakes and finds Harvey still and silent at last.  He doesn’t cry now … no reason for it, he has purpose.  All medical implements and machines are removed from the room … Mike refuses to see Harvey in the end surrounded by the signs of illness.  He washes and dries Harvey carefully.  He puts the suit Rene had altered only a week ago onto his love and carefully knots the tie.  The shoes Mike had shined at Harvey’s favorite shoe-shine stand gleam warmly.  Mike puts on his own suit that matches Harvey’s.  He wears the red Alexander McQueen socks Harvey pretended to loathe and the two-tone brogues he actually approved of.

When he’s finished, Mike puts a file on the foyer table addressed to Donna and sends her a text.  Mike glances around to see that everything is situated just so and then … finally … he goes to lie beside Harvey. 

“Don’t be mad, Harvey,” Mike murmurs as he settles beside his husband. “You sounded so sure last night … I thought maybe I could come back from you.  But then I woke up and you weren’t here … and I know I can’t.  I can’t be here without you, Harvey.  You said people don’t leave you … and I’m not about to start now.  So don’t be mad when I show up, ok?  Just kiss me and let me be with you like always.”

By the time the EMTs arrive, the carefully chosen drug cocktail Mike took the minute he knew Harvey wasn’t waking up has done its job and he lies silent beside his husband.

**Author's Note:**

> This is me when I'm hurting and it comes out in a story. Sorry for this.


End file.
